I couldn’t forget the FBI agent with the raven hair and the fog-grey eyes. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t look into her background, but I’d lied. I distracted myself with work for the first week, then in a moment of weakness, I uncovered whatever I could, devouring information so I could build a woman out of meaningless details.

I stayed in San Jose until I couldn’t anymore. As soon as I crossed into Barrington, I knew I would see her again.

I’m worried about how intrigued I still am by her. She’s as harmless as wolfsbane, with its innocuous-looking purple flowers. Touching it with a paper cut can kill a man. Or not. It’s a risk I’m not willing to consider. She can derail everything.

I’m not worried about the feds. I thought about moving out of the dark long before the FBI connected Keaton Bridge to Alpha Wolf. I’m prepared for the switch. Nor am I worried about her threats. They have the hollow ring of a prop sword on fake armor.

I won’t mistake Cassie’s vulnerability for weakness or her silence for lack of interest. She hasn’t gotten what she asked for. She’ll make sure she comes for me to get the link. I’ll find a way to give her what she needs without giving her what she wants.

The taxi speeds over the empty road, rain splashing everywhere. The layer of water on the windows marbles everything into a moving grey mass, but the driver speeds along as if he can find Barrington by smell.

I’ve dissected my last contact with Cassandra dozens of times since leaving. She’d turned skittish in her car, like a tamed horse who only remembered her wild past when cornered. Her domestication cracked, and something unruly seeped through. Something sexy and musky. Her sweet steel smell and the soft sound of her voice is stuck to my senses, latching on like a puzzle piece.

I’m sure I’d fancy getting the girl with the long sable hair to scream my name. I’m sure her sexual obedience would be more satisfying than any other woman’s.

By the time the cab pulls off onto a long road, the beating rain has slowed to a thick drizzle. The factory’s details are shrouded by the mist and the setting sun. Three cranes surround it, ready to remove the roof so the equipment can be dropped in.

The guard at the factory entrance sees me in the backseat and knows the driver because everyone knows everyone here. We’re waved past the gate and navigate the delivery trucks, then a flatbed with a ten-meter-high wooden box with QI4 stenciled on the side.

I pay the driver and hop up on the loading bay. I know the man with the clipboard and the woman operating the forklift. I know the name of the architect who points at the doorframe. They wave or nod, but they’re afraid of me. They don’t ask questions and I offer nothing. I’m a ghost, and I like it that way.

The room is cavernous. It’s a fucking circus. Forklifts and boxes. Drones stringing cables across the ceiling. Robots being assembled by robots. Sparking arc welding behind screens and the shouts of men and women with clipboards as they check their punch lists.

A male voice breaches the din. “It’s done!”

“Yes!”

That’s a woman’s voice I recognize, and I hitch my attention to it. Harper Barrington sits on a wheeled dolly, staring into a screen. Headphones arc over her blond hair, and six of her phalange knuckles are wrapped in white hacker tape.

I hop on the dolly as she pushes headphones off her ears.

“Hey, K,” she says as Taylor Harden hops onto the dolly in trousers and a jacket. They high-five and kiss longer than I find appropriate.

“Hello, Alpha,” he says when he’s done.

“Hello, Beeze.”

Harper shuts her console. “We can do the second half tomorrow.”

“Does she even work here?” I ask. “Shouldn’t she be in school?”

“Get someone else,” she says. “See if I care.”

“Winter break.” Taylor hops off the platform and calls to me, “You have to see this.”

I join him as he takes me across the concrete floor. It’s been sanded down and shined. Masking tape outlines the equipment and wall placement.

“We’re doing it,” Taylor says. “When I saw this, I said damn. We’re really doing it.”

He bursts out onto the loading dock, where a forklift picks up a pallet of nondescript boxes. It’s already cold, but colder air comes from the open back of the truck. SysCo is printed on the side.

“This is it!” Taylor’s breath is smoke and his jacket flutters open in the wind. “This is when I said holy shit.”

“It’s a refrigerator car? A food delivery?”

“When I dreamed about making it, I thought about this. Being so big we needed a cafeteria.”

“We need a cafeteria because you wanted to buy a factory in the middle of nowhere.”

He doesn’t even hear me. He’s lit up like London Bridge.

A crane lowers a pizza oven onto the dock. We jump to ground level. He knows me well enough to walk toward the river, where there’s less noise and confusion. We stop under the shelter built to protect equipment from the elements.

I make him nervous. His life is built on quantum circuits and the software that makes it feasible. If the law finds something on his partner, his life’s work is in jeopardy.

“The FBI,” he says in a more somber tone. “Have you heard from them since they brought you in?”

I’d told him about the interview, and he hasn’t brought it up since. Now he has to. This is why we’re by the river.

“I would have mentioned it.”

“Not comforting.”

He doesn’t believe me. Or more accurately, he believes I’m telling the truth, but doesn’t believe the truth is mine to tell.

“They were fishing,” I say. “I don’t have what they want. I told you this.”

He looks away, then back at me. “Okay, listen. Here’s the thing. I can’t…” He takes a deep breath. “I can’t take risks right now.”

I cross my arms, trying not to laugh at him. He was never half the risk taker he fancied himself.

“Is Harper all right?”

“She’s fine. Thanks for pretending you care.”

“I do care.” I have to jump in front of this, because this idea that I don’t care about him, and the love of his life by extension? It bothers me. “Tell me what you’re off about, would you? I don’t have all day.”

“We have a cash flow problem.”

“How much?”

“Hundred.”

He means a hundred thousand. It’s not much in the grand scheme of our investments and liabilities, but moving that amount around to cover it won’t be easy.

“Don’t we have accountants?” I ask.

“They can’t pull it off a money tree. All our shit’s tied up.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“With what? Bitcoin? No.” He can’t look at me, or he won’t. He’s doing it on purpose.

“Why not?”

Finally, he looks me in the eye. “Dude.”

“Wanker. I set you up clean.” The end of each word is clipped, but I keep my voice low. I don’t want to alarm him, but he needs to trust me on this.

He closes his eyes for a second as if gathering his own patience. “I know, but… Harper says there’s hacker chatter about you. Kaos’s people aren’t happy you’ve gone legit. And on the one hand, fuck them. On the other hand, it creates a vulnerability we have to shut down.”

“They have no idea who I am.”

“Dude, I don’t even know who you are.”

Taylor used to be an impenetrable wall of ambition. Once he met Harper, he started saying what was on his mind whether it serves his goals or not.

“We’ve been friends since you got your first boil,” I say.

“You dropped into New Jersey from nowhere.”

“London’s hardly nowhere.”

“Do you remember the time Mrs. Denver was calling your name in the cafeteria? She kept calling and calling and you just ignored her? Everyone turned around but you and the girl you were talking to. Denver was just, ‘Keaton! Mr. Bridge! Keaton! Keaton Bridge!’ I had to kick you.”

“I was obviously distracted by the bird.”

“No, I thought about this a lot. There were other times. The time you had to sign out of class early and you wrote a D instead of a K.”

My throat closes. There are some things I don’t talk about. Not with my best friend. Not even with those in my family with the same secrets. There are things that are off-limits, but if I tell him that, he’ll know by deduction. Taylor’s no dolt. In fact, he’s brilliant enough to get me killed.

I step out of the shelter. The rain’s slowed. “Reliving the glory days has been fun.”

“You didn’t know yourself by that name,” Taylor continues. “Keaton Bridge isn’t your name. It’s what it is, bro.” Taylor’s words come from far away, and I hang on every syllable. “It’s cool. You’re a mystery man. Cool. But maybe the FBI showed up here for a reason.”

“You have nothing to worry about. The fed will never be a problem. Ever.”

“And Kaos?”

“He’s not your concern.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“I’m not here to comfort you.”

“Why are you here?”

I answer by putting a hand on each of his shoulders and looking him in the eye. I’m here for him, but I can’t say that. He’d never believe it.

“I have this,” I say.

He looks at me in a way meant to threaten. I love him, but he’s a knob if he thinks he can scare me away from disappearing.